Terry waited expectantly, staring across the table at the woman as she frowned. She was looking at cards laid in a particular pattern and was interpreting their meaning.
"You've got a problem," she said.
Terry forced himself to not roll his eyes as he muttered quietly to himself. "No shit, Sherlock."
The woman paid him no attention as she turned her head from one card to the next, occasionally pointing and tapping with a single long-nailed finger. After several minutes, she grimaced and spoke. "First of all, there's nothing I can do for you except tell you what I see in the cards. I'm not sure I can even advise you on what you should -- or even can -- do. I'm not going to try to sell you anything, and I don't refer people to other occultists, either. Is that understood?"
"Yes," said Terry in a low voice. "What's going on?"
"Other people might interpret these differently than me, but this is the story that I'm reading from what's in front of me." She pointed at one card. "This represents you and what's going on right now for you."
"The Lovers?"
"Reversed," she corrected. "How the cards are placed can change what they might mean. Since it's upside-down, it means there is uncertainty and conflict. And since this is one of the Major Arcana, that means this is a big deal." She gestured to other cards on the table. "These, though, tell me that this is something that is inflicted on you. This isn't just you just not understanding or not taking ownership of your actions, though that is a part of it, too. You are surrounded by ill intent and misfortune."
"Such as?" Terry prompted.
"The Seven of Swords," was the reply. "If you look at the picture on this card, you can see that the person is stealing the weapons from the camp in the background." The woman gestured. "In this position, it looks like deceit, like an enemy that you think is -- or was -- your friend. Or possibly someone even closer to you than that."
"I haven't had anyone closer to me than a friend in a long time."
"I know," she said, pointing at another card. "The Eight of Cups is in your past. You walked away from that kind of intimacy." She tapped at a particular point on the card. "Look at the way these cups are stacked. There is a gap in the ones on the top row. You were feeling incomplete or unfulfilled with what you had, so you left."
Terry considered. It's true that he was the one to do the breaking up in his last significant relationship. It was also true that he initiated the break-up because he was not as happy as he thought he could -- or should -- be.
"I don't see anything about relationships in that picture. It's just the one figure walking away."
"That's not in the Eight of Cups card, true. But remember that the card representing you and your present is The Lovers, inverted. Together, these tell me that this entire issue is about relationships."
"Fair enough," Terry conceded. "What else?"
"Above you is the Seven of Wands. That signifies conflict. Below you is the Ten of Swords -- betrayal." The woman looked up into Terry's face. "Did your last relationship end badly?"
"Not particularly badly," said Terry. "It just ended. I might have been the one to end it, but it had run its course. It wasn't really a surprise or anything."
"If you say so," she said, returning her gaze to the cards. The next one showed the back of a person carrying a large number of long sticks. "But in front of you is the Ten of Wands -- a great burden."
Terry smiled wryly to himself. The burden wasn't just in front of him, he was embroiled in a problem that was physical, mental, and possibly even spiritual. That's why he sought out someone to read tarot cards in the first place. He didn't put much stock in things like this, but a stranger with a different perspective might be able to offer something useful.
"The next card -- the Five of Pentacles, but reversed -- says that the hardships will end, so don't lose hope. However, the other cards imply that might not happen soon or easily."
"So eventually, things will change?"
"They always do. Very little is permanent. But your situation is being influenced by a very important person with bad intent." She tapped the next card. "The Magician, reversed. When upright, the Magician seeks truth and is resourceful. When inverted, there is manipulation or a misuse of skills or power."
"Hmmm," murmured Terry noncommittally. He knew that a lot of so-called fortune tellers would often just regurgitate back at you whatever information you fed them. He was trying not to give this one anything with which she could put together a fake reading of the cards.
"This is also another card from the Major Arcana, so it typically carries a heavier weight than the other cards. This is someone you know. Someone who knows more than you think or has sought out a means to negatively influence or affect you.
Terry was having a rough time, all right, but he couldn't possibly see how someone else was directly causing it. His last breakup was almost a year ago, and this problem didn't surface until the last six months or so.
"Your hopes or fears," she continued, "are represented by the Two of Cups. This is another card about connection and relationships. The two people in this card clearly desire or care for each other, don't they? Notice how one is reaching for the other."
Terry would settle for a 15-minute relationship, so long as that meant that he had shot his load. Lately, something always seemed to happen to interrupt the moment.
Once he had been having a fantastic time with a little femme-boy he had picked up and brought home. This trick had been skinny almost to the point of being emaciated, with no hair on his chest, but he could kiss like a mother-fucker. Terry had been lying on his back and the bleached-blonde twink was straddling him. As he was lowering his delicious ass down, enveloping Terry's needy cock with his hole, glass had shattered. Someone had thrown a rock through a window in his living room in an act of random vandalism.
The twink had left, and Terry had called the police.
Another time, a promising date from an app on his phone had come to Terry's house. The man was tall and muscled, and tattoos ran up the length of his right arm. Terry had opened the door, and the date had reached out a hand and groped at Terry's crotch before even coming in the door. No words were exchanged. As he stepped across the threshold, though, there was a loud thud from outside, and a car alarm began going off.
The guy's car had been hit while parked in front of Terry's house. This resulted in another call to the police and another set of blue balls.
Terry had even snagged an invitation to a weekend-long retreat with a dozen other horny gay men that undoubtedly would have included lots of time for sex and orgies. He had been looking forward to swallowing loads from each of them and doing his best to impregnate a few (even though that was biologically impossible, it would be fun to try). He hadn't driven more than 5 miles before one of his tires blew out and smoke started coming from the engine.
It wasn't just sex with other people that was problematic lately, either. He wasn't even able to take care of his needs himself lately. Just in the past week, a water pipe had burst, he'd seen a rat scamper across the floor, his mother had called, or any of a number of other things to just kill the mood when he was trying to jerk off.
Terry didn't really believe in the occult, but his sex life certainly seemed to be cursed as of late. Desperate times called for desperate measures, so here he was having tarot cards read.
"If you continue on the path you are on," the woman continued, "we see the Seven of Pentacles, inverted. Upright, you'd see the man ready for a ripe harvest after a season's worth of effort. Upside down means setbacks. Not finishing what you started. Lack of reward for your hard work."
Terry wasn't sure that he liked that. If true, it meant that he was going to be suffering from sexual frustration for a long time, yet. He was already desperate enough to contact an occultist against his better judgment.
"If I continue on the path I'm on?" Terry questioned. "What does that mean? Can I change what's going on?"
"It's certainly possible," the reader returned. She pointed at the upside-down Five of Pentacles Card. "If you see this card right-side up, it looks like two beggars -- one of them lame -- out in the snow. They're walking past a stained glass window, but no one cares. Upside down, their troubles are coming to an end. This card is also in a position to show that you're currently enduring your situation, and that's not necessarily the wrong thing to do. That doesn't mean that it's the best course of action for resolution, though."
She continued. "Now take this card in conjunction with the last one that represents the outcome of your problem. If you do nothing but hope and persevere, your situation will not improve quickly by itself. It will, eventually, but being passive will not make things better in the immediate future." Gesturing to the other cards, she said, "You're currently surrounded by adversity, and there's a single person who is the lynchpin."
A finger tapped the upside-down Magician card. "This is who got the ball rolling on your troubles." The reader frowned slightly, pointing to the other cards. "Almost everything here tells me this is someone you trust or trusted. For some reason, someone is working against you and devoting significant effort into that."
"Let's say I have an idea who this might be," started Terry, even though he didn't. "What should I do? How do I proceed? Do I confront them?"
"The cards don't say much on this, but I might advise against it." She pointed to the Ten of Swords card. "I see this as a violent card when taken in context with the others. The subject in the card literally has been stabbed in the back with several weapons, and they've been left behind. The Seven of Swords and inverted Magician both speak to untrustworthiness. This person could very well be unstable or obsessive. If you confront this person directly, it may not go well."
"Really?" It was hard to believe in this, but there was an eerie accuracy -- vague though it may be -- to what was said so far for the most part. He wasn't sure how much weight to give the thought of one person causing his troubles with sex, though. If it was supposed to be someone he knew, who was that?
"Look at it this way, too: if there is a person who is the cause of your problem, and they're going to the kind of lengths that the cards suggest to affect you with negativity, what would their reaction be if you started accusing them?"
"What am I supposed to do then? Light some candles? Burn some sage?"
"You could if you wanted to," said the woman somewhat cryptically, with just a hint of sarcasm. "Personally, I'd work on figuring out who or what might be causing my problems if I were you. Or why. Or both. And then, figuring out how I could redirect their attentions elsewhere."
That was a reasonably practical suggestion.
"Look," she continued. "I don't pretend to know what's going on in your life or why you came to me or what you're looking for. I'm just looking at the cards and telling you what makes sense to me. Like I said before, I'm not going to try to sell you crystals or anything or refer you to anyone calling themselves a witch or anything like that. I'd take a restraining order from the court instead of a talisman for protection any day of the week, personally."
Terry was starting to like this woman despite his general skepticism of her craft. She gestured to the cards on the table again. "What I see in these is that your problem is relationship-oriented, you want to get out of that situation, and there is a person that's the ultimate cause of your frustrations." She paused thoughtfully. "Yes, I think that 'frustration' is a good word for it."
Terry could agree with that. "Frustration" was an excellent word for his overall mood.
The reader absentmindedly picked the next card up from the deck and glanced at it. She gave a double-take and looked at it harder.
Terry was intrigued despite himself. If she was a charlatan, she put on a good show. "What?" he questioned.
"Did you," she began hesitantly, "drive your car here?"
Terry was immediately on his guard. Slowly, he replied. "Yes."
"Do you have a dash cam that you can activate right now?"
While he had an app on his phone that let him activate the camera as a dash cam with a word, his phone was in his pocket. "No."
IT'S IN THE CARDS
She looked at him urgently. "Go check on your car," she directed. "Right now. I'll wait here for you to come back, but it is very important that you go check on your vehicle right this minute." She laid the card she had been staring at down on the table, face-down.
This didn't make a lot of sense. "What?"
"Do it," she insisted.
Resignedly, expecting to find either nothing or a scam of some sort, Terry rose from the table. He retraced his steps to the door leading to the street and opened it. He scanned the street to where he had parked and suddenly came alert.
Someone had opened the passenger-side door and was leaning into his car. He couldn't make out who it was, but he could see the open door and someone bent over as if doing or searching for something.
"This will not do," Terry muttered to himself, anger rising. Leaving the door to the tarot reader's place ajar behind him and without making sudden moves, he stepped out onto the street. He reached into his pocket to find his key fob. He momentarily considered reaching for his cellular phone instead, but this vandal would be out of his car and away before any police arrived. Pulling his fob out, he looked at it briefly, making sure he saw the buttons on it.
Taking a few slow and deliberate steps toward his car, he tensed his body to be ready for a pursuit. Carefully, deliberately, he pressed the button on his key fob labeled "Panic."
Immediately the lights on the car started flashing, the horn started sounding, and an alarm began wailing. The perpetrator jerked up in surprise, hitting the back of his head on the frame of the car with significant force.
"Shit!" the intruder exclaimed, grasping the back of his head in pain with both hands. He dropped whatever had been holding onto the front seat as he squirmed and gasped.
Terry immediately ran the several steps to get to his open car door. Slamming into it with his full weight, he forcefully pinned the man inside the car.
"What the fuck!?" exclaimed a familiar voice. "Goddamn, that hurts!"
Holy shit, the reader had been right. Terry knew this asshat. The man who he had broken up with all those months ago had been rooting through his car, doing God-knows-what. He didn't know if this complete waste of DNA was actually behind his sexual frustrations lately, but he was in no mood to put up with his car being broken into by someone he once dated. This guy was lucky Terry didn't try to break his legs by slamming the car door over and over against them.
"You're not going anywhere, motherfucker," Terry said, trying to keep his fury in check, "except maybe to jail. What's wrong with you? Breaking into my car? After all this time? Really?"
Terry was sure that he had his ex well-restrained. Even if his ex had been a physically strong man (and he wasn't), he had no leverage to try to push Terry off the car door holding him in place. His legs had been bent when Terry caught him in the door, so his lower legs were all but immobilized by the pinching of the door combined with Terry's weight on the side away from the hinges. Given his positioning, there wasn't much the he could try to brace his arms with, either, to try to push from that direction. He wasn't going anywhere until Terry allowed it.
In fact, it didn't seem that he was even going to try all that hard to escape. After a couple of futile attempts to push the door open, he just slumped across the front seat of the car, sobbing and wailing in apparent anger and frustration at being caught. Terry could only make sense of every third word or so, but he thought he heard something about promises or broken deals. It didn't make any sense, but he didn't really care about these ravings right now, either.
Leaning heavily on the door to pin his most recent ex a little more painfully in place, Terry slid a hand into his pocket for his phone and used the Emergency function to call the police. Once it was clear that he was detaining the intruder himself, the voice on the other end replied that cars would be dispatched immediately. Within minutes, Terry's ex was in handcuffs and sitting in the back of a police car being driven to the nearest station. Terry followed them so he could give his statement.
A few hours later while sitting in the police station with a cup of bad coffee in his hand, a uniformed officer approached him.
"So this douchebag has been spilling his guts about a lot of things he's done to you," he explained. "Hit and run. Stalking. Breaking into your home and car. Releasing rats into your residence and causing a health hazard. Identity theft of you and your family members. Lots more, too."
Terry rolled his eyes. "Good Lord," he sighed. "I haven't even seen or spoken to this guy in months. I had no idea he was still around, much less that he was doing shit."
"The guy got more than a little obsessed with the idea of getting you back for breaking up with him," the officer continued. "To hear him tell it, he went from grief to anger and kind of got stuck there, emotionally. He started following you. At one point he got a copy of your key fob and had it cloned at a locksmith so he could get in and out of your car undetected." The policeman sat and looked directly into Terry's face. "It gets worse, and we're going to need to search where you live."
"Do what, now?" Terry was getting confused.
"Well," the officer went on, "he said that he's got some wireless cameras set up in your bedroom and elsewhere. We need to find them for evidence."
"You're fucking kidding me!"
"I wish I was."
Terry was feeling more and more violated the more he found out what was going on. How could he have not noticed or guessed some of this? "Let me get this straight," he said. "This absolute prick was watching me pretty much all of the time, I guess, and any time he saw me with someone else..."
The policeman finished for him. "Threw a rock through your window. Whanged the fuck out of some guy's car. Released a rat into your place. All sorts of things. He knew your regular schedule and hung out with a tablet computer near you when he knew you were supposed to be home. Or he'd follow you if he saw you going out." The officer shrugged. "The dude is seriously messed up. But he knew exactly what he was doing."
"Good God," Terry muttered. He didn't want to believe this story, but under the circumstances, what choice did he have?
"We'll be keeping him here for a while," the officer went on. "Then turn the information and his confession over to the prosecutor. I expect him to be a guest of the criminal justice system for several years based on what we have so far."
"So, what does that mean?"
"Once we do a search and get the cameras he admitted to planting, fingerprints, and any other evidence this dicknuts left behind, you'll be getting your life back the way it was before this guy started interfering."
Terry signed deeply and felt a budding sense of relief. Was his libido finally going to be allowed to run free again?
"Is there anything you need while we get the paperwork together to gather evidence at your place?" the policeman concluded.
Terry was foreseeing an end to the last several months of being interrupted. "Well," he said smirkingly, "I could use a few minutes alone somewhere private, I think. I have something I need to work out right quick." He winked at the policeman, who smirked in response. "Then a few minutes later, I might need someone to help me out with the exact same problem."
"Well," he replied with a small shake of the head, "our job is to serve the public. If you need a hand -- or anything else -- all you have to do is ask." His eyes slid down from Terry's face to his crotch and stayed there. "Your stalker made it clear that he was doing everything he could to make sure you were -- stymied."
Terry smiled wryly. "Entrapment, officer. I'm not going to blow my first load in months only to get arrested for being lewd in public."
"I'm due a break," he replied, reaching one hand up to rub at his nipple through his uniform, "and I'd be a sucker if I let a chance like this pass me by. A guy who's been -- interrupted for this amount of time? You might bust in your pants before I could get my lips around it."
Terry nodded, acknowledging the thought and the possibility as his dick rose to full attention inside his trousers. "Don't be a tease," he said. "I'd be happy to let you suck out a load or three, but I don't want to get arrested for letting you suck me off in a public place like -- oh, I don't know -- a police station?"
"Damn, this thing with that guy has made you a little paranoid, hasn't it? Or were you always like this?"
"A little, maybe. But the circumstances are kind of weird."
The officer began removing items from various compartments on his belt and pockets. "I can't get us in a private place in the amount of time I have for my meal break." Things were placed carefully on a desk. "I CAN get us in a room with no surveillance where we'll be left alone for a little while. Give me three minutes on my knees. I'll leave my cuffs and other shit like that here so you know that I'm not trying to trick you."
Terry was sorely tempted, and the ache in his testicles demanded to be released soon. "Well..."
"You won't have to do anything. Just stand there. I'll pull out your cock and get you off. That way, you're not taking any actions that would give me cause to arrest you. I'll do all the work. All you have to do is get off."
"All right," Terry said, standing awkwardly. "You talked me into it. Now let's get to where we need to be."
Less than two minutes later, the police officer had led Terry into an empty storage room, pushed him against the wall, and knelt, working feverishly to free Terry's cock. As Terry's clothes fell and crumpled around his ankles, the policeman paused briefly. Reaching towards the door, he pushed the button on the knob to set the lock.
"That takes care of that knob, now let's take care of yours."
Terry gasped loudly as the warm wetness enveloped his needy dick, his eyes opening wide. It felt as if every nerve in his groin was firing off signals of pleasure all at once. He wasn't sure he had ever felt a sexual thrill this intense. The combination of the time, place, the person currently trying to consume his dick, the amount of time since he had cum...everything about the situation was heightening his sensations.
The policeman worked the buttons of his shirt to open it, revealing a bare and skinny chest. Reaching around, he grabbed at Terry's ass, with one finger on each hand massaging his hole once they found it. He continued to work the prick with his face, getting sloppier each time he buried his nose in Terry's pubes. Soon, slobber was dripping down his chin and wetting his slight pecs.
Terry laced his fingers behind his head and squeezed his bent arms forward around the side of his head. This guy had asked for three minutes, and that might be all the time he needed. This guy's mouth was exquisite! Terry closed his eyes and began to imagine the size of the load that would soon be released after so long.
A rattling at the door shocked him back to reality. Someone was trying to get into the storage room. "Are you fucking kidding me," he whispered sharply. He dropped his hands from behind his head and began to stoop down to re-dress. His dick popped out of the officer's mouth, and a disappointed little moan escaped his lips.
The policeman pulled back a little and looked up into Terry's face. "Don't worry," he whispered back. "This door is almost always unlocked. Only a couple of people have the key, and they should be on their meal break right now like I am. We have a few more minutes."
Terry heard muttered cursing from the other side of the door, and it sounded like its source went down the hallway.
"All right, then," he said meaningfully. Once again, Terry stood tall and laced his fingers behind his head.
The officer immediately opened his mouth and began to sloppily work for his reward. The hands resumed their previous positions, with fingers massaging the outside of Terry's asshole. Despite assuring Terry that they had time, he bobbed his head more quickly than before, clearly not wanting to waste time just in case someone found the key to the door.
Terry felt his need arising and knew that he had only seconds to brace himself. He consciously tried to keep his lower body as relaxed as he could, while squeezing the side of his head. He struggled to keep his breathing as normal as possible. If this guy wanted his pent-up load this badly, he might as well take it down his throat.
After all, he was on his meal break, wasn't he? The least Terry could do would be to make sure he had a decent meal.
And then it was happening. Terry was glad he was standing against a wall because the power of his release would have made him stagger if he hadn't been. As it was, his knees buckled a bit. He struggled to keep control of his voice as it felt like cum was coming out of his dick in a forceful stream instead of repetitive spurts.
The man on his knees began to swallow noisily, grunting as he struggled to breathe as more and more sperm flooded his mouth. He gulped as quickly as he could, keeping up with the flood of jazz that invaded his orifice. He seemed determined to take all of Terry's now-released seed, and Terry was fleetingly grateful for that.
Within seconds, Terry felt his balls churning again as the policeman continued to work his cock and massage his hole. He didn't know how, but this guy was going to be getting him off again in short order.
This time, Terry grunted, not trying to be quiet or caring about who might be on the other side of the locked door. He opened his hands, releasing his own head and grabbing the shoulders of the slender half-dressed man in front of him. Pulling the body into him, Terry thrust his hips forward. He couldn't imagine there could be much ejaculate left in his body, but he was going to give every bit he could get out to this hungry man.
"Take it again!" he insisted, as he felt his muscles contract rhythmically.
The officer complied, holding still even though he was unable to inhale or exhale. Terry could feel no panic or struggle beneath his hands. When Terry was sure there would be no further pulses, he pulled back, freeing his still-turgid member from the wet hole in which it had been sheathed.
Closing his eyes, Terry collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily. He was exhausted and spent. He almost felt as if some of his life had been drained out of his cock.
<It was,> a deep voice resonated within him.
Terry started in confusion.
The skinny officer was no longer in the locked room with Terry. He hadn't left the room, he just...wasn't there anymore. Terry looked around the room quickly, but there were no hiding places. Instead of a skinny-chested half-naked policeman, there was only a formless dark area in the room. It was not a shadow because it had dimensions, but either his eyes or his mind could not register the actual shape.
<Don't worry. You will recover.> The words impressed themselves on Terry's mind, but it didn't seem that he could hear them. <I'm done with you, now. The one that summoned me to frustrate you and who then reneged on his promises to me, though...> Terry got a distinct feeling of the need for revenge and punishment on someone who had earned both.
"What in the blue blazes is going on?" Terry asked in exasperation. His tolerance level for the inexplicable had been met and exceeded today.
, the voiceless words impressed themselves within Terry's mind. <The one you caught earlier had made a bargain with me. I was promised his essence. In return, I was to help him prevent you from utilizing yours.>
Terry felt that he was going to lose it soon. Was he hallucinating?
<No.>
"So that syphilitic dog's puzzle of an ex--"
<Correct. He could not do all the things necessary to stop you himself.> The words rumbled through Terry's brain. <In anger, he enlisted help from another. You don't ask favors of my kind without paying. And he is going to pay. For a long time. You and I, though, are finished.>
The presence faded from the room and Terry's mind. Shakily, Terry re-dressed himself, left the storage room, and retraced his steps back to where the so-called officer had first approached him. This had gotten way too weird for him to be able to wrap his head around. Terry found a chair and sat heavily, not even trying to think about the turns this day had taken.
Eventually, a voice penetrated Terry's physical and mental exhaustion. "We're ready to take your statement against your ex if you're ready to give it."
Terry did not bother to raise his head, almost afraid of what he might see if he did. He figured that he might as well get this over with so he could go get extremely drunk and -- if he were lucky -- very laid by a couple of good-looking go-go dancers.
"Where would you like me to begin?"